Final Study for "Bathers at Asnières"

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Artist: Georges Seurat (French, 1859–1891)
Medium: Oil on panel
Size: 15.8 × 25.1 cm (6 1/4 × 9 7/8 in.); Framed: 54.3 × 63.9 × 6.1 cm (21 3/8 × 25 1/8 × 2 3/8 in.)
Museum: Art Institute of Chicago
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

Georges Seurat made this painting as a preparatory work for his monumental Bathers at Asnières, now in the National Gallery, London. It shows men and boys on the bank of the Seine River in the working-class Parisian suburb of Asnières. The view presented here is just across the river from the leisure park Seurat immortalized in his best-known work, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884.

The frozen gestures and sedate poses of these bathers set a mood distinct from the sparkling scenes of Parisians enjoying restaurants and other riverbank activities favored by the Impressionists. Nevertheless, Seurat’s focus on a subject from modern life, his luminous palette, and his airy brushwork show how the young artist adapted characteristics of Impressionist painting for his own purposes.

Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0.